In the words of Pema Chödrön, author of the book When Things Fall Apart, “Embarking on the spiritual journey is like getting into a very small boat and setting out on the ocean to search for unknown lands. . . For all we know, when we get to the horizon, we are going to drop off the edge of the world. Like all explorers, we are drawn to discover what’s waiting out there without knowing yet if we have the courage to face it.”
In her post Today I Yelled at God and This is What Happened Next, Michelle Martin exquisitely expresses her frustration and anger at the world and what she aptly calls “God-Universe-Higher-Power-Guardian-Angel” because the world is not cooperating with her wishes for her life. I’m sure all of us can relate to Martin’s frustration. Anyone who has ever had a hope or dream for themselves, only to be told “no” by a boss, a friend, a family member, or by the universe knows what it is like to have to play the waiting game for the universe to cooperate.
Martin deeply connects with Chödrön’s metaphor of an explorer on a boat. Such is our journey in faith: we have a heading, an idea of the direction we are going, but along the way we can get knocked off course by a storm. The mighty ocean waves make us feel insignificant and powerless compared to their power. But like an explorer pushed off course at sea, after the storm we reorient, though now the path might be different. And like the explorer at sea, the person of faith constantly reorients, but is ever unsure of where she will land.
Though Martin doesn’t explicitly say it, the key to the metaphor is that the explorer must step onto the boat and set sail, despite all her anxieties and fears. So it is with faith and the quest to become the best versions of ourselves. It is scary. We don’t know what storms life will throw at us, or what we will uncover on the journey. But, if we don’t set sail, we will discover nothing about the world and nothing about ourselves. An entire universe is waiting for each of us to set sail, but it is on each of us to pull up the anchor and embark on the journey.
After a three year career as an aerospace engineer working for the US Navy, Adam Lutz also felt the need to respond to the question “How’s your faith?” in his own way. Currently, Adam is in his fifth and final year of rabbinical school at Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion.
